Safe Bank

The article examines the possibility of tokenising covered bonds and addresses whether the marginal Polish retail covered bond market may benefit from tokenisation as a catalyst for its revival and increased attractiveness for retail investors.

The first part presents an analysis of the benefits of tokenising financial instruments, justifying the adopted research objective. It then outlines the legal framework, with particular emphasis on the Act of 29 August 1997 on Covered Bonds and Mortgage Banks, governing the issuance, transfer and exercise of rights arising from covered bonds. The subsequent part advances a dogmatic legal argument demonstrating that the Polish legal system does not adhere to the principle of numerus clausus of securities, which allows tokenisation to be regarded as permissible in principle.

The concluding section outlines prospective developments in EU law, including the draft Regulation of 4 December 2025 (2025/0383(COD)), and formulates de lege ferenda postulates concerning domestic law on the tokenisation of mortgage covered bonds.

The article applies the dogmatic legal method, supplemented by the comparative legal method.

The aim of the article is to identify and assess the role of the trustee in strengthening the covered bonds investment security. The article explains the specific features of the oversight framework for mortgage banks. It outlines the responsibilities of an independent trustee operating at a mortgage bank. It demonstrates how the trustee’s additional oversight of mortgage banks and covered bonds, by providing investors with predictable returns at limited risk, contributes to enhancing the security and stability of the financial system.

This article examines the relationship between yield spreads of covered bonds and government bonds in France and Germany. The primary objective of the study is to determine whether the dissolution of the French National Assembly in June 2024 and the sovereign credit rating downgrade of France in October 2025 can be classified as structural breaks and to identify how these events influenced the relationships between mid-yields to maturity in these markets. The analysis is conducted using a vector autoregression model. The empirical findings, supported by Wald tests, confirm that both events constituted structural breaks. While the study finds no evidence of long-term cointegration, it reveals that the Granger causality evolved over time. Specifically, an initially bidirectional relationship between French and German mid-YTM spreads of debt securities became unidirectional following the 2024 legislative crisis, with developments in the French market influencing those in Germany. Although this influence weakened following the rating downgrade, the results suggest that the French market's impact on Germany may persist in the long term. Ultimately, the study underscores the importance of political stability and sovereign credit quality as key determinants of pricing dynamics and market integration within the euro area.

This article develops the Mortgage Bond Institutional Framework Index (MBIFI), a transparent scoring framework for comparing the institutional design of mortgage bond systems. MBIFI comprises eleven indicators grouped into four pillars: legal protection, collateral safety, cash flow protection, and market infrastructure. Each indicator is scored on a 0–4 ordinal scale using published behavioral anchors and is presented primarily as an indicator-level diagnostic profile; an equal-weight composite score (0–100) is reported only as a supplementary summary measure. The framework is illustrated through a pilot application to Germany and Poland. Under the baseline specification, Germany scores 97.73 and Poland 77.27. The observed difference arises from five indicators in collateral, cash-flow, and market-infrastructure dimensions, while the legal-protection pillar shows no cross-country difference. Because the application is limited to two countries and a single assessor, the paper does not claim full validation of the index. Its contribution is instead methodological: it offers a transparent coding architecture, explicit scale anchors, and a replicable basis for future multi-country testing, inter-coder assessment, and validation against market outcomes.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to analyse crypto-assets with a limited environmental impact and to assess the impact of the Proof of Work mechanism on the natural environment.

Methodology: The study is of a review and analytical nature and is based on an analysis of academic literature, reports and regulatory documents from 2010 to 2025. The analysis examined the impact of PoW on energy consumption, carbon footprint, electronic waste and socio-economic aspects, and compared it with the Proof of Stake and Pure Proof of Stake mechanisms.

Results: The analysis showed that PoW is characterised by high energy consumption and a significant environmental impact. Alternative consensus mechanisms are characterised by lower energy consumption and may reduce the negative environmental impact of blockchain technology.

Conclusions: Crypto-assets with a limited environmental impact may represent a direction for the development of more energy-efficient blockchain solutions; however, they require further research and greater transparency regarding environmental data.

This article provides an approving commentary on the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 12 February 2026 in Case C-471/24, concerning the admissibility of reviewing contractual terms in credit agreements based on the WIBOR reference index under Directive 93/13/EEC. The authors analyze the economic and legal context of mass consumer claims against banks in Poland, highlighting the emergence of a multi-billion market for legal services and attempts to extend litigation to variable-index loans. The paper discusses the factual background of the case, the preliminary questions referred, and the key findings of the Court, particularly regarding the scope of lenders’ information duties, the transparency requirement, and the relationship between consumer protection rules and the Benchmark Regulation (BMR). The authors argue that the judgment excludes the possibility of considering the WIBOR mechanism itself as unfair and significantly limits the grounds for mass challenges to credit agreements. In conclusion, the judgment is assessed as important for maintaining financial stability and for curbing a potential new wave of litigation against banks.